


Kingdoms Are Clay

by EmeraldHeiress



Series: Shards of Kyber [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Child Leia Organa, Don't copy to another site, Double Agent Vader, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multi, Skywalker Family Feels (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26671393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldHeiress/pseuds/EmeraldHeiress
Summary: Bail sensed the shadow before he saw him. Tall and hulking in the doorway.Looming.Lord Vader.
Relationships: Bail Organa & Leia Organa, Bail Organa/Anakin Skywalker, Bail Organa/Breha Organa, Bail Organa/Breha Organa/Anakin Skywalker, Breha Organa & Leia Organa, Breha Organa/Anakin Skywalker, Leia Organa & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Shards of Kyber [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847170
Comments: 17
Kudos: 229
Collections: New SW Canon Server Works, Tales From the Attic





	Kingdoms Are Clay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loosingletters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/gifts).



Bail sensed the shadow before he saw him. Tall and hulking in the doorway. _Looming_.

 _Lord Vader_.

The viceroy rolled his eyes as he continued to play with his daughter. He called over his shoulder. “Get in here and say hello.”

There was a pause. A rasp as the shadow shifted and his armor creaked.

“I can’t.”

His voice was low — dark and menacing as it was filtered through that damned vocoder. A sound that brought terror to half the Galaxy. It set Bail’s teeth on edge. He’d rather hear the voice underneath it. The soothing tones of Tatooine accenting the lilting words of Alderaani that he had learned for them.

“Then change first, laserbrain.” He kept his tone light, warm, as he smiled fondly in the direction of the form — the Emperor's second-in-command, Watching as he slinked away, suitably chastened.

Bail knew Vader stayed away from Leia. In case there was ever a moment when they _needed_ her to fear. To run. To hide. In case there was ever a time it wasn’t really her daddy under the mask. He couldn’t say he liked the idea of seeing the blank eyes of that abomination of a helmet in the nursery himself. The viceroy suppressed a shudder and smiled at the brightest spot in his life.

Breha entered the room a moment later. Kissing her husband, she reached down and pulled Leia into her arms, snuggling their daughter close. The toddler giggled in delight, grabbing a fistful of her mother’s hair in her hand.

A half-hour passed and someone else quietly slipped into the room. Blond hair still damp from the shower and eyes bruised with exhaustion and pain.

“Anakin!” Bail exclaimed, concern welling in his chest. He reached for the other man, wrapping his arms around him. Gratified when the former Jedi buried his face in his shoulder. The heat from his body and the leftover warmth from the shower radiating into Bail.

“What happened, darling?” Breha asked, joining them, gently carding her free hand through Anakin’s hair.

Leia began to fuss in the queen’s arms and Anakin pulled away, his face closing off. “Oh, Leia, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” He scooped their daughter up and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be more careful. I—” His voice broke as he pressed his forehead to hers, eyes closed.

The air in the room lightened and Bail realized Anakin must have reinforced his shields. That his emotions must have been leaking into the room around them.

“Ani?” Breha asked gently, placing her hand on his back. He shuddered at the touch.

Leia gently patted her daddy’s face with tiny fists and he smiled, pulling back and holding her close to his chest.

“I’m sorry. I just…” Anakin trailed off, looking at the tapestry hanging on the wall of the nursery. It was new since he had last been able to come home. Finally complete. Breha had commissioned it shortly after the birth of the Empire. After the birth of their children.

It was woven in Alderaanian tradition, subtly depicting each of them on thrones. Anakin placed where he should sit — on the traditional consort throne between the Queen and Viceroy.

On smaller thrones spaced between were Leia and —

“You put all of us on it.” Anakin breathed.

“Of course we did, Anakin.” Bail said.

“But the _danger_ , if anyone sees—”

“In the nursery, darling?” The queen asked, soothingly.

“The weavers—”

“All trusted.” Bail soothed.

“ _Luke._ ” The Jedi’s voice broke over the name.

“ _We’ll find him_.” Breha slipped her arm into Anakin’s and laid her head on his shoulder. “We’ll find Luke. We’ll bring him home.”

Their son, Leia’s twin. Lost to them before they’d even known the twins had been born.

They gazed at the image on the tapestry a bit longer. The image of the happy family they should be. Without the Empire. Without the purge. Without the war and the hiding.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” Anakin admitted quietly. Leia fussed in his arms again and he rocked her gently. “It gets worse every day. I slip a little further into the dark.”

There was a pause. His next words were slow and careful. Loaded with unspoken emotion.

“I worry that I won’t be able to find my way back.”

His wife shifted, tightening her grip on their husband. Offering comfort.

“The Council wouldn't have given you this mission if they didn’t have confidence in you. They believe in you, Anakin.” Breha reminded him softly.

“We’ll be here to pull you back.” Bail reassured, twining his fingers with Anakin’s where they rested on their daughter’s back. “We won’t let you get lost.”

“Half the Council is dead and the other half on the run. I don’t think they ever considered the purge.” Anakin said bitterly.

Bail shared a look with his wife and Breha swooped in, plucking a now sleeping Leia out of their third’s arms.

“I think that’s enough for now. Time for bed.” Pressing lips to dark hair, the queen laid her down in her bed, looking only briefly at the empty one beside it — ready for when they brought her brother home.

Anakin protested weakly as Bail coaxed him off into the Royal Chambers.

“You can spend more time with her tomorrow.” He soothed. “You need us more, I think.”

“But you don’t…”

Anakin stuttered over whatever he was about to say but Bail just shot him a quelling look. “Don’t even _finish_ that thought.”

Breha joined them a moment later. Together they bundled Anakin into the middle of the bed, knowing he needed the comfort. He went reluctantly but they knew, after two years of spying, of acting as the Emperor’s right hand, that it wasn’t a reflection on them.

Anakin’s ghosts followed him home. No matter how much they wanted to exorcise them, they could only be there for him while he fought himself. Offering comfort and support while Anakin played his role.

As they finally settled, Anakin curled into them, warm and filling the empty space in their arms for the first time in months.

When Bail had first kissed Anakin, half drunk and almost fumbling as he pressed the Jedi into a wall — after hours at a Senate banquet — he never anticipated what it would lead to. He’d never expected to fall in love.

Five years later, the fall of a Republic, the rise of an Empire, another marriage, a birth…

He was theirs as much as they were his and Bail wouldn’t change it for anything. Even with the fear that shot through him every time Leia made something move — visions of Inquisitors with red blades marching to their borders — and the cold terror that Anakin would be found out. That he wouldn’t come back to them.

The Emperor would fall. They would find their other child. They would rise from the ashes of yet another revolution. Perhaps a little bruised, a little damaged, but together.

Bail trailed a hand down his wife’s sleeping face and a thumb across his husband’s cheek as he burrowed between them, sleeping peacefully for likely the first time since he’d left.

They would see it through together.

Or die trying.

**Author's Note:**

> This is all Eli's fault and now I have a new OT3 living in my brain rent free.


End file.
